Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1887-05-26

and delicate. Her hair. beautiful
auburn, shaded forehead of rare pro-
portions and symmetry, underneath
which great brown eyes looked out
from depths impenetrable and shed
their light on other features of strange
childish beauty.
Her face, was simply that of a good
looking child, would have attracted
attention among hundreds of little
girls. Strange to say, this most at
tractive face was overshadowed with
an expression so marked. so facinat-
ing that not to observe it was to ever
| look form and feature and forgot even
childhood itself.
This peculiar expression seemed to
obliterate all else. 1t may not be put
into any Ineligible form of words. 1t
was so unchildlike. A bewildering
sense came ins:inctively, as one looked
and wondered at the strange beauty
that seemed to be hiding away in the
mysterious depths of those great
brown eyes.
Those who saw her every day for
months together observed it and ques-
toned about it. Strangers were at
tracted, and many we're the inquiries
concerning the strangely beautiful
child, and all we're drawn irresistlbly
TO admire and wonder and love the
little girl with the great brown eyes
What was the mystry?
We never knew, until it was too
late.
We only knew that there was some
thing mysterious, that Ada was not
like other little girls of her age. We
knew that, in place of the bright,
hopeful, prospective, on-going, out
reaching of ordinary childlife from
to-day unto tomorrow. there always
seemed to be something that looked
for and was strangely intent upon 60
ing back from to-day until yesterday.
This backward look was so deeply
sci, and so marked IN the expression
of her great brown eyes, that could not
be mistaken.
She never recalled the past. She
never spoke of yesterday. 1t was in
the expression of her eyes.
She never complained. Her patience
and fortitude, indeed all her ways
with the children and others surround
ing her, were so strangely forbearing.
that it only increased the wonder at
her behavior.
She was so gentle, kind, doclle, af-
fectionate, truthful. obedient; and her
matron said 80 conscientious that she
would neither do wrong thing nor
suffer others to do a wrong that she
could prevent
But that backward look; how strange
how fascinating it was!
Two weeks proceeding her death,
little Ada was taken sick; from the
first her symptoms were alarming,
attended with excruciating pains.
The doctor came. Superintendent and
matron, as If she had been their own
child, lavished upon her every posi-
BILE attention.
Her own matron. the cottage girls
all the officers became intensely in
terested.
Ada never murmured. She asked
to see her papa Her papa was sent
for. He, poor man. borrowed the
money to bring him to the nearest
railway station, then walked the in
tervening ten miles. to see his little
girl. She seemed so glad that he had
come. After brief visit the father
left her to return to his work in the
city. Ada seemed satisfied, but
steadily grew worse until, on Friday
morning, when in the midst of dis
tressing pain, she lifted her hands to-
ward heaven, and with one wild,
agonizing cry, the long hidden mys-
terry, buried in the depth of the great
brown eyes, the strange backward
longing for something in the past,
something lost for which she was in
search, something she thought to find,
was fully revealed to the watchful and
weeping eyes of strangers.
Strangers they we're. They never
knew it before-that between them
and all the love they could bestow,
other forms we're intervening, until
the anguished cry of that despairing
child broke upon their ears.
The physician had exerted his best
skill; he loved Ada; everybody loved
her; but beyond, backward, before she
had known these, other forms, un.
known to present friends--invisaole
forms-were standing, and upon these
the gaze of the great brown eyes had
always been fixed-6xed in longing
despairing love, until the heart could
fear no more So she sank down.
Rheumatism of the heart, the doc.
tor said; and as the great fiery pains
shot athwart the enfeabled frame and
fixed their burning grasp upon the
heart of the dying child, the long
spent sorrow found expression as with
her hands outstretched toward them,
she uttered with piercing bartender
ing agony the cry: Papa! Mamma!